The Power of Book Reviews - How to Avoid Huge Ships

My friend Fiona Ingram, who is a children's book author, recently sent me a link to the Amazon sales page of an out-of-print book called How to Avoid Huge Ships, published nearly 20 years ago.

What's remarkable about this book is that How to Avoid Huge Ships has 143 reviews on Amazon as of this writing, most of them recent and many of them hilarious. The top review on the page has more than 1,100 "helpful" votes and 37 comments.

It seems that writing and sharing reviews for this book (which is on the serious topic of how small watercraft can avoid being run over by huge ships) has become somewhat of a sport. The review phenomenon for How to Avoid Huge Ships has even been discussed on the Publishers Weekly blog.

"These funny reviews are pushing this obscure book slowly up the sales ladder. It shows how reviews can grab the public and how they tap into the social network, which does more for any book or product than advertising can," says Fiona  Ingram.

There's an old saying that there's no such thing as bad publicity. These irreverent book reviews are getting attention for the book, and with asking prices on the Amazon Marketplace for this out-of-print book starting at $74.95, it appears that someone is actually buying it.

If you want a good laugh, read through some of the reviews for How to Avoid Huge Ships. And remember the power of book reviews and social sharing.  Learn more about how to promote your own book with book reviews in my new ebook, How to Get Your Book Reviewed.

Comments

[Dee for D.I. Telbat]

Hi Dana,

Wow! This says a lot about reviews and what they can do for a book! Thanks for the link. I had a great LOL at some of those! :)

[Dana Lynn Smith]

Thanks Dee. My husband came into my office while I was reading those huge ship reviews - he couldn't figure out why I was laughing so hard!

[Dana Lynn Smith]

Thank you to @TommieLyn on Twitter who shared another book with funny reviews: The Kindle version of Nuclear Energy, which sells for $6,232.00 on Kindle. (No, that's not a typo). This book is ranked #499,744 among paid books in Kindle Store (out of approximately 1 million books) so someone is buying it.
http://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Energy-ebook/dp/B001C2TPWO